The Belize tourism high season has started, and so far the number of overnight visitor arrivals has remained relatively robust, despite the 43-day shutdown of the Federal government which affected flights from the United States, the source of 69 percent of Belize’s overnight arrivals.
The Ministry of Tourism and Diaspora Relations and the Belize Tourism Board (BTB) reported the good news to the media at the Best Western Biltmore Plaza Hotel in Belize City on Wednesday morning, November 26. Their numbers showed that while U.S. arrivals decreased by 1.7 percent (5,228 fewer visitors) so far this year, this was offset by a 29 percent increase in arrivals from Guatemala (2,741 more visitors) and Mexico (3,163 more visitors). Other increases in visitors from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands were such that overall, Belize has received 448,188 visitors so far up to the end of October, which was 0.4 percent more than the 446,563 visitors for the same period last year, and 9.3 percent more than the 408,511 overnight visitors from January to October 2019. Belizeans living abroad who visit as tourists account for 4 percent of total overnight visitors, and their arrivals increased by 123.
